Articles by Surinder S Jodhka

As Punjab enters another election year, the Akali Dal seems to be shifting to the community/religion axis of its politics in the hope of consolidating its electoral base. The state government's recent decision to classify three professional colleges run by the SGPC as 'minority institutions' is apparently a part of this effort.

Society, State and Power Institutions and Inequalities: Essays in Honour of Andre Beteille edited by Ramachandra Guha and Jonathan P Parry; Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp ix+302, Rs 595 (hardbound).

The notion of community is being invoked not only by social scientists engaged in understanding Indian social and political processes, but also by parties on the right and the left in their mobilisation and in the official discourses on development law and common civil code. But in most of these discourses, the internal structure of the supposed communities invariably gets elided in favour of a notion of moral bonds and cultural authenticity.

Surinder S Jodhka Peasant Moorings: Village Ties and Mobility Rationales in South India edited by Jean-Luc Racine; Sage Publications, New Delhi, 1997; pp 400, Rs 495, MIGRATIONS from rural to urban areas in third world countries have been viewed with much interest particularly by those concerned with understanding the processes of development and change in these societies. The classical theorists, both in development studies as well as in demography, thought of migrations in an universal-evolutionary kind of framework. It was expected that as the developmental process unfolded, a large proportion of rural inhabitants would inevitably move to cities, giving up working on land and shifting to employment in industry or the urban service sector. Industrialisation and urbanisation have for long have regarded as the two most important indicators of the modernisation process.

'Crisis' of the 1980s and Changing Agenda of 'Punjab Studies' A Survey of Some Recent Research Surinder S Jodhka Despite it having occupied the front page of Indian newspapers for more than a decade, the movement for an independent state of Khalistan has ended without achieving anything in political terms. However, the 'crisis' of the 1980s has had far-reaching implications, both for the people of Punjab and for the Indian polity at large. At another level, it has led to the institutionalisation of 'Punjab Studies' in the global academy.